But Vienna was now the musical capital of Europe. It was the concentrated scene of action where all the chief musical issues of the day were fought out. There the Mannheim school had its continuation, soon after its inception; there Haydn and Mozart found their greatest inspiration--as Beethoven and Schubert did after them--it remained the citadel of musical Germany, whose supremacy was now fairly established. It is significant that Burney, in writing the results of his musical investigations on the continent, devotes one volume each to Italy and France but two to Germany, notwithstanding his strong Italian sympathies. However, the reason for this is partly the fact that Germany was to an Englishman still somewhat of a wilderness, and that the writer felt it incumbent upon him to give some general details of the condition of the country. We can do no better than quote some of his observations upon Vienna in order to familiarize the reader with the principal characters of the drama for which it was the stage.[39]
After describing the approach to the city, which reminds him of Venice, and his troubles at the customs, where his books were ‘even more scrupulously read than at the inquisition of Bologna,’ he continues: ‘The streets are rendered doubly dark and dirty by their narrowness, and by the extreme height of the houses; but, as these are chiefly of white stone and in a uniform, elegant style of architecture, in which the Italian taste prevails, _as well as in music_, there is something grand and magnificent in their appearance which is very striking; and even those houses which have shops on the ground floor seem like palaces above. Indeed, the whole town and its suburbs appear at the first glance to be composed of palaces rather than of common habitations.’
Now for the life of the city. ‘The diversions of the common people ... are such as seem hardly fit for a civilized and polished nation to allow. Particularly the combats, as they are called, or baiting of wild beasts, in a manner much more savage and ferocious than our bull-baiting, etc.’ The better class, of course, found its chief amusement in the theatres, but the low level of much of this amusement may be judged from the fact that rough horse-play was almost necessary to the success of a piece. Shortly before Burney’s visit the customary premiums for actors who would ‘voluntarily submit to be kicked and cuffed’ were abolished, with the result that theatres went bankrupt ‘because of the insufferable dullness and inactivity of the actors.’ By a mere chance Burney witnessed a performance of Lessing’s _Emilia Galotti_, which as a play shocked his sensibilities, but he speaks in admiring terms of the orchestra, which played ‘overtures and act-tunes’ by Haydn, Hoffman, and Vanhall. At another theatre the pieces were so full of invention that it seemed to be music of some other world.